Apple generated about $2.51 million of revenue per employee in fiscal 2025: $416.2B of net sales with about 166,000 full-time equivalent employees. That is up from $2.38 million in fiscal 2024 (164,000 employees).
Sources: AppleForm 10-K filings, fiscal 2015-2025 (SEC EDGAR); ratio calculated. Analysis by The Business Engineer.
How we source: figures on this page come from the company’s own filings (SEC 10-K, 10-Q and earnings releases, or its annual report), with the period stated next to each number. Last refreshed October 2026. Our methodology.
Apple's revenue reached $416B in fiscal 2025, 1.9x its fiscal 2016 level. Source: AppleForm 10-K filings via SEC EDGAR XBRL company facts. Analysis by The Business Engineer.iPhone still drives Apple ($54.3B in the June 2026 quarter, +22%), and Services adds $30.7B. Source: Applequarterly earnings releases (Form 8-K, SEC EDGAR). Analysis by The Business Engineer.
The Business Engineer view: why Apple’s revenue per head is so high
Apple designs products and runs stores and services, but outsources most manufacturing to partners in Asia. The people who assemble iPhones are not on Apple’s payroll, which is why revenue per employee is far higher than at manufacturers that build in-house.
The ratio jumped in fiscal 2021 ($2.38M) when sales surged, held near $2.4M for three years, and hit $2.51M in fiscal 2025. See Apple employees.
Apple had 161,000 full-time employees as of 2023, generating $2.38 million per employee.
Apple Employees
161,000 full-time employees as of 2023
Revenues per Employee
$2.38MM
Analysis by FourWeekMBA
Key Facts
Founders
Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne
Year & Place Founded
April 1, 1976, Los Altos, CA
Initial Business Model
From computers, Apple shifted to smartphones, with the introduction of the iPhone on June 29, 2007, which became the most important product, and business segment for the company
Year of IPO
December 12, 1980
IPO Price
$22
Total Revenues at IPO
$117,901,543
Business Model Change
On June 29, 2007, Apple launched the iPhone, which revolutionized the whole business, in 2021, the iPhone generated almost $192 billion in revenue or over 52% of the total company’s revenues
Tom individual investors comprise Art Levinson (chairman of Apple), Tok Cook (CEO of Apple), while top institutional investors The Vanguard Group (7.68%), BlackRock, Inc. (6.47%), and Berkshire Hathaway Inc. / Warren E. Buffett (5.56%)
As of 2024, major Apple shareholders comprised Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway with 5.92% of the company’s stock (valued at nearly $170 billion as of February 2024). Followed by other individual shareholders like Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, with about 3.3 million shares, and Artur Levinson, chairman of Apple, with over 4.5 million shares. Top institutional investors comprise The Vanguard Group with 8.27% ownership and BlackRock with 6.66% ownership.
Apple has a business model that is divided into products and services. Apple generated over $383 billion in revenues in 2023, of which over $200 billion came from iPhone sales, $29.36 billion came from Mac sales, $39.84 billion came from accessories and wearables (AirPods, Apple TV, Apple Watch, Beats products, HomePod, iPod touch, and accessories), $28.3 billion came from iPad sales, and $85.2 billion came from services.
iPhone and Services sales represented the main revenue drivers in 2022. Within the service revenues, the fastest growing sub-segment was the advertising business Apple built on top of the App Store, followed by the Mac, Accessories & Wearables, and the iPad.
In 2023, most of Apple’s sales (63%) came from indirect channels (comprising third-party cellular networks, wholesalers/retailers, and resellers). These channels are critical for sales amplification, scale, and subsidies (to enable the iPhone to be purchased by many people). In comparison, the direct channel represented 37% of the total revenues. Stores are critical for customer experience, enabling the service business and branding at scale.
Apple is a tech giant, and as such, it encompasses a set of value propositions that make Apple’s brand recognized, among consumers. The three fundamental value propositions of Apple’s brand leverage the “Think Different” motto; reliable tech devices for mass markets; and starting in 2019, Apple also started to emphasize more and more privacy to differentiate itself from other tech giants.
By February 2024, Apple was worth nearly three trillion dollars. Apple generated over $200 billion from iPhone sales in 2023, which accounted for over 52% of its net salesโfollowed by services revenues at over $85.2 billion, wearables and accessories at over $39.84 billion, Mac sales at $29.36 billion, and iPad sales at over $28 billion.
In 2023, iPhone sales represented 52% of Apple’s net sales, the same in 2022. Yet in 2023 revenue from the iPhone slightly slew down to over $200 billion in sales, compared to over $205 billion in iPhone sales in 2022, still a growth compared to almost $192 billion in iPhone sales in 2021.
Apple generated nearly $97 billion in profits in 2023, compared to almost a hundred billion dollars in profits in 2022, $94.6 billion in 2021, and over $57 billion in 2020.
Appleโs mission is โto bring the best user experience to its customers through its innovative hardware, software, and services.โ And in a manifesto dated 2019 Tim Cook set the vision specified as โWe believe that we are on the face of the earth to make great products and thatโs not changing.โ
It costs Apple $501 to make an iPhone 14 Pro Max, and the company sells it at a base price of $1099. This makes Apple’s base markup on the latest iPhone model at 119% Apple is the only tech company able to sell its tech products at such a premium, thanks to a combination of hardware, software, and marketplace.
While Apple Tim Cook’s salary has been $3 million since 2016, most of Tim Cook’s compensation is performance-based. For instance, in 2023, while the salary of Tim Cook was $3 million, he had total compensation of over $63.2 million, which comprised stock awards and other incentives and bonuses.
Tim Cook’s net worth is primarily comprised of his Apple stocks. As of 2024, he owned 3,28 million shares of Apple worth over $600 million at the current rate. However, Tim Cook has sold part of his Apple stocks over the years for hundreds of millions of dollars, making him a billionaire.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
